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'ni»T-

Harvard College
Library

Gratis

^Wi^P|

V

THE LITTLE CHILDREN
OF THE LUXEMBOURG

»

ft

"Hen the eken bletitt ps», and pain, none the leu ioUnie
because it caimot be anaiyzed, gripi little bcarts."

THE LITTLE CHILDREN
OF THE LUXEMBOURG

BT

HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS

Author of "Paris Reborn," etc.

WITH TWENTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS

FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

BY HARRY B. LACHMAN

PHILADELPHIA

THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY

1910

TA.i7t>]

.so

OCT 21 1921

Text and Photographs Copyright, 1916, by
Rodman Wanamaker

Copyright, 1916, by
The Century Co.

Copyright, 1916, by
Harry B. Lachman

The author and the photographer acknowledge their
indebtedness to the editors of the Century Magazine for
permission to republish this story. A few of the pictures
were first published in the Century Magazine and the rest
are now printed for the first time.

List of Illustrations

"Then the thers blessSs pass, and pain, none
the less intense because it cannot be
analyzed, grips little hearts". . .Frontispiece

PAGE

"The younger boys from the Lycee Mon-
taigne are drilled seriously every day " . . 9

" Children's feet and children's voices made
the best noise of all " 13

"A veteran of 1870, tracing the battle-
field with his cane in the sand, explains
the campaign in the Argonne" 17

Convalescent soldiers join in the training
of the next generation" 21

Workmen have been laying a gas-main.
The opportunity is splendid: real
trenches are at hand " 25

"Girfs have their essential place in the
play armies. Equality begins in the
nursery" 29

"War is revealed to one at every turn" ... 33

"Here also is the waffle-man" 37

"The wee women of France are not shelved
by the masculine sex" 41

"From the Irish mouth under Mimi's
turned-up nose comes a chortle of
glee" 45

7

«

«

JjJf^T OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAQB

"Like tneir big sisters, the little girls have
enlisted for Red Cross duty" 47

"Dolls are wounded soldiers", »,.......,. 51

"One has only to look at the children's
faces " ,*••..... 55

"With other fond parents, the Girl and I
were standing outside the ropes" 59

"Yachts are no longer sailing for a prize
Battleships are going out after the
enemy" 63

"The grandfather who boasts of having
rented boats to men today admirals is
still good for twenty years " 67

"The donkey shakes his head mournfully" 71

"Big trees are fortresses" 73

First aid is given" 77

Boys who can be bossed are Impressed
into service as stretcher-bearers" 79

"Home on eight -days' furlough, after a year
in the trenches " , , . 83

"How the permissionaires treasure the pre-
cious moments with wife and babies ! " . . 85

"The blind are learrdng, with hesitating
footsteps, a new dependence" 87

«
«

8

The Little Children of
the Luxembourg

ON a June afternoon seven years
ago the Girl and I renewed
with the Luxembourg what
had been for her childhood and adoles-
cent memories and for me a passing
acquaintance. As we walked by the
row of statues against the wall of the
musee and skirted the tennis-courts to
find a bench in the parterre, we Jittle
realized that the Girl was to add
motherhood memories, deeper and
more precious, and that my acquaint-
ance was to ripen into friendship.

11

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

A few hundred yards away, in the
direction of the Pantheon, a band was
playing. From the opposite side of
the parterre came the pom-pom of the
guignol-man. Everywhere, right and
left, near and far, children's feet and
children's voices made the best noise
of all. Wonderful it was to us that
day. We were in dreamland; a spell
we did not wish to attempt to analyze
possessed us. The morning's express
had brought us from Marseilles. Two
weeks before, in the interior of Tur-
key, we had been suffering the horrors
of the Armenian massacre. A far cry
from Asia to Europe, from savagery to
civilization, from the devil in man to
the God in child. That was the spell.
We understand it in retrospect. Not

12

\

OF THE LUXEMBOURG

the waltz of "La veuve joyeuse"; not
flowers and trees and fountains; not
seeing again, after a year under the
shadow of Islam, people of our own
kind; not a park and a bench, the old
familiar blessings of Occidental city
life, which one never appreciates until
he has lived away from them. The
little children of the Luxembourg!
The devil might rage, but the world
still belonged to God because of His
children. The massacres were only a
hideous nightmare; our suffering was
intensified, and lasted, because we had
regarded, them as reality. No experi-
ence of evil, of pain, of bereavement
can crush when there are children
around. Life still holds everything;
not some things, but everything^ for

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

in the renewing of life nothing is
lost,

A pair of youngsters in their twen-
ties could hardly have appreciated this
great truth had it not been for the
fact that a baby -carriage stood beforci
them as they sat under the spell of the
little children of the Luxembourg. It
was our first purchase at the Bon
Marche that morning. We had bub-
bled over with pleasure and pride
when we had it taken right down in
the elevator and out on the rue de
Sevres. For there was something to
put in it, and there she lay, our three-
weeks-old baby, who had already trav-
eled in three continents.

A wee . apartment was found in the
rue Servandoni, two minutes' walk

16

li

if

OF THE LUXEMBOURG

from the Luxembourg. We furnished
it in one hour for five hundred francs —
all the money we had in the world.
That was why I had to write something
quickly- While the Girl was getting
supper that evening, I unpacked my
type-writer from its battered leather
case, drew a sigh of reUef that nothing
was broken, and put it on our one and
only table. Before giving way to
plates and knives and forks, there was
time to make a start at least. I typed
out the title, "The Little Children of
the Luxembourg,'* and just then the
Girl called for me to run out and buy
some butter. Back at my work, I
started in: "It was — *' A can of peas
had to be opened. The Girl confessed
that this was a mystery to her, and I

19

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

found that it was a trick requiring
time and thought on her husband's
part. Then the table was needed, and
the type-writer went to the floor.

It ended there: other things came
up. In those days continuity of effort
had no place in the vision of a litter-
ateur who saw the goal shining so
brightly that the way to get there was
obscured. After all, there was nothing
particular to say about the little chil-
dren of the Luxembourg without grind-
ing it out, and the Girl sympathized
with the litterateur in confusing inspi-
ration and application. Editors, who
appreciated neither poems nor essays,
were anathema to her, too.

Seven years! Bored with the gen-
eral "bum feeling'* of a cold in the

SO

OF THE LUXEMBOURG

head, the litterateur^ who had evolved
into one of a hundred newspapermen
in Paris, was trying to find some novel
form of amusement to while away an
afternoon's absence from his office.
He picked up a bundle, labeled "Arti-
cles to *be written,*' which had not
been untied since the golden days of
the rue Servandoni. What could be
more fun than to go through them?
The paper came to light: "The Little
Children of the Luxembourg. It

was — '*

With the years, pleasant changes
had come, and I knew more about the
little children of the Luxembourg, sum-
mer and winter, spring and autumn. I
knew more because the three-weeks-
old traveler in three continents was

93

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

now the eldest of four. A brother and
sister played with her in the Luxem-
bourg, and there was still a three-
weeks-old baby for the carriage. I
knew more because there is no truth
in the old maid and bachelor saying
that parents think only of their own
children, and have no time for, or
interest in, those of others. Let spin-
sters and bachelors talk all they want;
they don't know, that's all. The more
kiddies you have yourself, the more
you appreciate other people's kiddies.
And other people who have kiddies do
not need to be assured that this is
true.

To grown-ups the Luxembourg
means a delightful and embarrassing
choice of places to sit. Every bench.

r
r

i

If

OF THE LUXEMBOURO

from the pear-garden at the rue Vavin
entrance to the fountain of Catharine
de' Medici over by the Od6on, has seen
me unfold my "Temps** of a summer
evening with a sigh of contentment as
I sniffed flowers and grass and leaves.
Every nook from the kiosk of the old
woman who sells the best hoops at the
upper rue de Vaugirard entrance to the
shady wall of the Ecole des Mines by
the BouF Miche* has welcomed me to
the joy of an undisturbed hour with
my book. And yet, when I go to the
Luxembourg, I never know where to
sit. Even an Englishman would find
it hard to become wedded to one spot
where all are alluring. Oh, this bother
of choice! I suppose that is why I
have never resented the mob of a

87

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

Sunday afternoon; for then the prob-
lem of choice does not confront you.
If there is a place, you sit where that
place is.

To children the Luxembourg means
a delightful choice of things to do, and
choice is not a problem to them.
They are free from the torture of deci-
sion. What comes first they tackle,
and then go on to the next thing. If
children did not get tired once in a
while, perpetual motion would have
been discovered outside of the labora-
tory. As it is, parents are nearer find-
ing it than physicists. It is lucky for
me that the older I get the less inspired
the "Temps'' is, and the less I feel the
necessity of reading all the news for
fear something escapes me. It is

28

"Girli have tbeir euential place in tlie plajr snuie*.
EquAlity begiiu in the Dunery."

OF THE LtJXEMBOtJRG

lucky for me that the older I get the
less I hold to book knowledge. After
all, the summum bonum of much knowl-
edge (in the objective form) is to feel
that it really is a weariness to the
flesh. The infallible sign of intelligent
growth in wisdom is an increasing
inability to take oneself seriously* If
I regarded my duties and my own
importance in the scheme of things as
I used to when I first thought I was
shouldering responsibilities, I should
long ago have broken down under their
burden. Physicians have made much
money by having to bother with peo-
ple who have never come to themselves.
But would they not rather have done
without the fees ? The near-sick are the
soul-squeezers of the practitioner.

81

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

What I wrote about sitting in the
Luxembourg refers to the past and not
to the present. I am glad that I feel
as I do about the " Temps/' for there
is no longer one wee baby who "stays
put'' in her carriage and demands
attention only from her mother. Three
husky, rollicking children claim me the
very moment I appear. I might avoid
them, but, funnily enough, I do not
want to, even to secure for myself the
luxury of sitting on a bench, biting the
end off a carre h deux sous, and read-
ing. The match-box stays in my
pocket; so does the "Temps." I
am taken in tow, and appropriated
for definite purposes; then begins
the round that never tires. It is
always the same; but it never tires.

S2

OF THE LUXEMBOURG

First the beehives, where the story
must be told of how honey is made
and why the honeymakers had better
be left mitouched. That doesn^t last
long. Children are as keen for action
in papa as editors for action in stories.

The allee leading from the rue de
Fleurus to the grand bdssin means
nothing to the tourist. His eyes are
fixed upon the dome of the Pantheon,
framed by the half-mile of foliage that
shuts out everything else. He looks
neither to the right nor to the left until
he reaches the parterre. To the chil-
dren that parterre is the end of a half-
day's journey, for here, in the allee,
are the balangoirSy the chevaux de hois
steeplechase, the chevaux de hois merry-
go-round, and the guignol. Here also

S5

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

are the kiosks tor pain d' Spice and the
waffleman.

Were you justifying your existence
by the work you did today in your
atelier? Not a bit of it! The chil-
dren show you how absurd a thought
that was. The world would wag on
just as well without your work; not a
living soul would miss it. But here,
to three precious Uving souls, papa's
strong arms to put them on the wooden
horses are indispensable, and more
indispensable still the sous from papa's
purse to pay for the fun. Titine and
Lloyd and Mimi choose their steeds.
Titine, ever a cautious baby, has a
preference for Madame Giraflfe. The
neck is thin enough to give a feeling of
security, since little arms can encircle

36

OF THE LUXEMBOURG

it, and this is more than can be said
of other animals who have been tried
and passed up. From the first day he
made bold to ride, Lloyd has been fas-
cinated by the very yellow Monsieur
Lion, whose neck is frozen in a turn,
and who grins reassuringly at his
rider. Only this last month has Mimi
graduated from the ignominious safety
of the chariot with red plush cushions,
which rests on half -swans, to the dar-
ing of a whole animal. She is trying
them all, and has not settled upon one
to cling to. But already — ^how imme-
diately independence asserts itself! —
she resents the straps, those shameful
symbols of babyhood.

The merry-go-round, however, is by
no means just for fun. Play with

89

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

children has invariably a serious pur-
pose, which is more than can one say
of work with their elders. Grown-ups
have lost the art of play because they
have forgotten how to be sincerely
serious — serious by instinct. We are
serious by effort; ergOy we are clumsy
and half-hearted in our play. It is
heresy, dreadful heresy, to say it, I
know, but I often think that here is
the secret of the craving for alcohol.
Man wants to get away from his stu-
pid, habitual self as evolved, the sad
product of repression of instinct and
expression of volition.

When the music starts, Titine and
Lloyd fall to grabbing rings and hop-
ing for the brass one, which means a
stick of candy. Look at their faces,

40

"Tie wee women of Prance are not shelved by

OF THE LUXEMBOURG

and be convinced thai children are
lucky wild birds until they get in the
cage of our educational system, bred
of convention and breeder of medioc-
rity. From the Irish mouth under
Mimi's turned-up nose comes a chortle
of glee that cannot be drowned by the
wheezy organ-pipes. Her freckles
shine with joy, and her red hair is
tossed in the pride of being 'way up
there on the great big zebra. She
looks down with contempt on fright-
ened babies who refused to ride, and
lost

The good they might have won

By fearing to attempt.

The mother of the merry-go-round
is wise in her many days and three
generations. She learned long ago not

«

43

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

to discriminate, and that is why she
has made her fortune in catering to
children. A stick of candy goes with
the brass ring, but every other kid gets
a stick of candy, too. The worst
break I ever made in my life occurred
six months ago. I doubt if I have yet
been quite forgiven for it. I had been
off to the other end of Europe on one
of my too frequent trips, and the first
day at the Luxembourg, after my
return, I had forgotten all about those
sticks of candy. I lifted Lloyd from
his horse, and, heedless of the protest
he was trying to make, took him out of
the inclosure before, from his burst of
heartbreaking sobs, I realized that I
had forcibly prevented him from going
to the old woman for his candy. I

44

"Ffom the Irish mouUi under Mimi's tumed-up
nose come* » ckortle of gle«."

"like thw Kg Often, the little girls have ei
for Bed Cn»> duty."

OF THE LUXEMBOUBG

simply could not make it up to him. To
my son I was as the Germans are
to the Belgians. Atonement is not in
a child's scheme of things, and he
indignantly refused a franc's worth of
sweets, purchased despite his mother's
dismay at a near-by kiosk. I ought
not to have done it, that was all. I
ought not to have done it.

The swings and steeplechase and
merry-go-round are only the beginning
of the afternoon's work. Now comes
the guignoly greatest of Paris institu-
tions, and imique joy of Paris children.
We leave behind the stirring music of
the merry-go-round, and with each
thump of the drum we are approach-
ing, joy is manifest from feet to curls.
Wee hands clasp big sous, and the

49

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

children are off along the well-known
way, mingling ' with other tabliersy to
push in beyond the magic rope for a
seat at the Punch and Judy show.
There is no "first come, first served"
at the guignol. There is no fear of
not getting a good place. Monsieur
and Madame know their business as
well as the most famous impresario. I
doubt not that many a New York or
London manager would be glad to
have their bank-account. The seats
are all in front of the stage and grad-
uated. There is no need for signs.
Kids cannot read signs. But the seats
are none the less reserved for their
particular clientele. Big kids never
crowd in ahead of babies. From the
three-year-olds in front, they mount to

50

OF THE LUXEMBOURG

the ten-year-olds in the rear rows.
When there is room, a few grown-ups
are allowed in.

I shall not attempt to tell abouc the
show, nor how it is received by the
children. An impression of the guignol
cannot be conveyed by writing or by
painting. Only the camera catches it.
Standing outside the ropes and listen-
ing to the same old story and watch-
ing the same commonplace antics of
Punch, Judy, the policeman, the thief,
the soldier, the maid-servant the
butcher's boy, and the pawnbroker, I
wonder by myself how and why it
amuses for six or seven years, certainly
for four or five. Perhaps variety is
not the spice of life with children. But
the proof of the pudding is in the eat-

53

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

ing. One has only to look at the
children's faces and listen to their
laughter to realize that Punch and
Judy and the others are "delivering
the goods/' Titine is in her fifth guig-
nol year, and still comes for sous.
Mimi is just starting, and her eyes
brighten, and her laugh rings out to
prove that it works, and is working,
with the thousands of Titines and
Lloyds and Mimis who give their sous
to the man with the drum.

With other fond parents, the Girl
and I were standing for the several
hundredth time (I ought to begin to
be saying the thousandth now) outside
the ropes.

"How do they get away with it?'' I
asked the Girl. "Day in and day out,

54

OF THE LUXEMBOURG

year in and year out, generation in and
generation out, how do they find
enough change of topic to interest the
same clientele?'^

The Girl looked at me with amused
tolerance.

"You write a newspaper article
every day,'' she said. "How do you
get away with it? Why do your
readers stand for it.^ There are only
seven keys on the piano, and yet all
the music in the world has come from
them. It is a question of permuta-
tions and commutations — endless, just
as in algebra."

Now we make for the grand hassin^
where the greatest sport of all is await-
ing us. As we pass under the trees to
reach the steps, the Girl and I look

57

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

with interest at the clever croquet the
old men are playing. We must stop
a minute to watch some of the strokes*
It is as skilful as billiards^ this game,
and nowhere can you see such split
shots as here, and as in golf the haz-
ard of uneven ground prevents the
game from becoming too mathemati-
cal. But the kids tug immediately.
To them the game is stupid. Titine
has more than once expressed her
astonishment and disgust that grown-
ups should so waste their time.

The world of kiddies is all their own,
peopled with little folk. When they
walk with their elders, they are obliv-
ious to grown-ups* But they never
miss seeing children, and they have the
keenest interest in all other members

58

OF THE LUXEMBOURG

of their world. A child would no more
fail to see other children in the street
than a dog would fail to see other
dogs. I have tested this.

*Whom did you see in the Luxem-
bourg today, Titine?''

"Lots and lots of kids. There was
a little boy — '' and so on for half an
hour.

"Were there many grown-ups? Tell
me now about the grown-ups you
saw.'' Silence and an embarrassed
laugh.

"Papa*s a joke," declares Mimi.
That settles it.

Since the war began, however, there
is an important exception in Paris to
this axiom of child psychology. The
children have taken the soldiers into

61

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

their world. So it is that, when we go
down the steps to the grand bassin^
the two soldiers on guard in front of
the palais are spied.

^^VoUa les sentineUesI** cries Titine.
Lloyd salutes. Mimi yells, ^^Soldatsl
soldatsi Ihy mamani Za, papa!^^ Stand-
ing rigidly by their gueriteSy with fixed
bayonets gleaming in the sun, their
presence contrasts strangely with the
background of flowers and the fore-
ground of hoop-rolling girls and boat-
sailing boys. They have always been
in front of the Palais du Senat, but
now they seem different in their habit-
ual setting. Their immobility, their
very presence here, is imreal. How
can valid men be spared from what we
call "out there," fighting for France.^

62

OF THE LUXEMBOURG

I had not intended to speak of the
war. One always resolves, when he
writes, to forget the war. But even
in the Luxembourg, when you are
with, and engrossed in, the children,
the war enters, for it is an essential
factor in our life* It is our war. We
cannot rid ourselves of the thought of
it,. of the burden of it. The children
accept it, and, as with all the serious
things of life, incorporate the war in
their play.

Boats there are in the grand bassin^
all sorts and conditions of them, just
as one always finds them on a good
afternoon when the wind is blowing
gently. And eager faces are gazing
intently from the stone coping. But
the game is different in these days of

65

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

war. Yachts are no longer sailing for
a prize. Battleships are going out
after the enemy. The hunt is one-
sided, however, as few boys are will-
ing to sacrifice themselves for the com-
mon good by having their boats fly an
enemy flag. In the grand bassin the
German flag is as scarce as it is in the
North Sea.

If physical activity be a criterion,
the grandfather who boasts of having
rented boats to men today admirals in
the Mediterranean and members of the
cabinet is still good for another twenty
years. When Lloyd goes to choose his
boat in the fascinating shipyard, I
often chat with the ship-owner. He
never fails to tell one that he stopped
growing old when he reached sixty.

66

If

OF THE LUXEMBOURG

Today he asked his new joke (new,
since he has been repeating it for only-
fifteen months, while the joke before
the war had been tried for fifteen
years) .

"Let me see, you want a German
boat, is it not?'' he asks, bending over
with a toothless grin.

"No!" shouts Lloyd, tense almost
to tears. "The Germans are — "

Why repeat it all? I try to remain
cosmopolitan and to call myself a
neutral, but my son is neither cosmo-
politan nor neutraT. The letter of
boats nods approvingly, and pats the
boy on the back. Lloyd, mollified,
admonishes him with a "Pew de
blague! '' For a franc Lloyd gets a boat
big enough to require papa's assistance.

69

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

From naval warfare we turn to join
the army. The donkeys, drawing
empty carts, shake their heads mourn-
fully. They do not understand their
loss of popularity, which, I find, is due
to their exploiter's lack of appreciation
of child psychology. Early in the war
the children saw that the donkey-man
would stand for no nonsense. He did
not want his carts used as ambulances,
dragged around after the advancing
battle-line; so, save on Sundays, his
pickings are poor. He would gladly
be a good sport now, but the children
have boycotted him. He is even
suspected of being a Boche.

We climb the steps of the parterre,
and walk along the alleys of the Obser-
vatoire on our homeward way. Every-

70

OF THE LUXEMBOURG

where the children have organized
themselves into armies. Big trees are
fortresses. It is possible, even inside
the iron gates, to storm redoubts and
trenches. For workmen have been
laying a gas-main from the rue de
Vaugirard to the BouF Miche*. Mer-
cifully they are doing it slowly. The
opportunity is splendid; real trenches
are at hand.

Near the upper gate a group of
older boys (older means from ten to
thirteen) is gathered around a veteran
of 1870, who, tracing the battle-field
with a cane in the sand, explains the
campaign in the Argonne. Another
veteran drills seriously every day the
younger boys from the Lycee Mon-
taigne. Convalescent soldiers join

75

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

in the training of the next genera-
tion.

Girls have their prominent and
essential place in the play armies. The
wee women of France are not shelved
by the masculine sex. Equality begins
in the nursery. Jumping-ropes and
hoops have been laid aside for happier
days. Even diabolo is losing ground.
Tennis-rackets gather dust on the
upper shelf of the hall closet. Dolls
are wounded soldiers, and doll car-
riages, if used at all, are ambulances.
Like their older sisters, the little girls
of the Luxembourg have enlisted for
Red Cross duty, and follow the armies
to give first aid on the battle-field.
Park benches are improvised hospitals.
Set forth on them, bottles, cotton, and

76

OF THE LUXEMBOURG

bandages show their stern reality of
the play. The nurses wear the regu-
lation headgear, with the cross upon
the forehead. Smaller boys, who can
be bossed, are impressed into service
as stretcher-bearers.

The children reflect the spirit of the
nation and the work of the nation.
The war has first place in the minds
of all; it has first place in the eflForts
of all. Is not play at its best an imi-
tation of what the grown-ups are
thinking and doing?

And in the Luxembourg the other
side of the war is revealed to one at
every turn. War means glory and
immortality only to poets and orators;
to the rest of the world it means
suffering and death. I am reluctant

81

• THE LITTLE CHILDREN

to go with my children to the Luxem-
bourg these days, for it seems like
flaunting my immunity in the face of
everybody. Other fathers are at the
war — or are not. Children's guardians
are grandfathers. Black is the preva-
lent color in dresses.

Soldiers there are a-plenty. Some,
vigorous and bronzed, are permission-
airesy home on eight-days' furlough
after a year in the trenches. How
they treasure the precious moments
with wife and babies. But by far the
greater number in uniform are wounded
and convalescents. In every alUe one
meets the maimed on crutches; or the
blind, who are learning with hesitat-
ing footsteps a new dependence on
cane or loving arm. As they pass, the

8d

"Home on ei^t dayj' furlough, after ■ ye*i in the

OF THE LUXEMBOURG

chers blesses^ tlie children pause in
their play and salute them silently.
Tear-filled eyes and lips that have
scant respite from quivering bear wit-
ness to the children's knowledge of
what war means. They are not
allowed to idealize war as they would
instinctively do; in the enthusiasm of
earnest play the glory of war should
be uppermost. But then the chers
blesses pass, and pain, none the less
intense because it cannot be analyzed,
grips little hearts.

Were it not for the very fact itself
of little children in the Luxembourg,
this would be too sad to write about.
The blessing, the healing virtue, the
inspiration of the Luxembourg is not
in flowers and trees, in fountains and

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

fresh air. It is in the children, the
hope of the nation.

So when a young woman passes,
carrying a dog and cooing to it, one
has reason to beUeve that a heart is
lacking, else it would break.

90

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